


Moving Heaven and Earth to Find You

by DreamsOfSleep



Series: Mars Landing [1]
Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, F/M, Future!Nick, Science Fiction, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-07 14:22:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 12,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6808741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the future, Nick is a long-haul truck driver on Mars Landing, but he never forgot what he left behind.</p>
<p>For the woman who he fell in love with the moment she walked through the door, he would go to the ends of the universe to find her, and she would be there waiting for him every time because she believes in him no matter what.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. If He Makes You Happy...

**Author's Note:**

> This totally insane, off-the-wall idea for a New Girl fic is a result of insomnia and converging these underdeveloped storylines on the show:
> 
>   * Why didn’t Ryan ask Jess to move to England with him if they were so serious and in love?
>   * Nick not displaying any emotion upon learning that Jess said “I love you” to Ryan or the Jess/Ryan relationship being serious enough for them to say “I love you” to each other. Pretty big deal for the girl you still have feelings for to say "I love you" to some other guy.
>   * Nick not fighting for Jess in "Mars Landing."
> 

> 
> Thus, Ryan + Mars Landing + craziest thing Nick could ever do = go to Mars (i.e. make Mars Landing real). Throw in a zombie apocalypse to up the stakes and go all out since this is a crazy sci-fi AU anyway. Additional Easter Egg: adds an additional layer of meaning to the "Helmet" episode (helmet = space helmet = unresolved Ness feelings). Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He just wanted her to be happy, even if it wasn't with him.

"Ryan asked me to move to England with him," she tells him one day while they are sitting side by side on her bed. She doesn't look at him. Her hands are clasped neatly in her lap. Her eyes are focused on her feet stretched out before her on the bed. He feels icy claws on his heart. "What do you think I should do, Nick?"

He wants to reach over and hold her hands in his. He doesn’t. His hands remain lying palm down on his lap. "What do you want to do, Jess?"

"They'll never make me principal at this school, will they?" she says ruefully. "Ryan says I can become a teacher at his private school. I could go back to teaching kids again."

"Is that what you want, Jess?" he asks her with his heart in his throat. He doesn’t look at her. He looks at his feet lying next to hers on the bed, at the backs of his hands lying still in his lap. 

She shrugs. "I should want to move on. I should want to grow up." She pauses and adds almost as an afterthought, "Plus, he loves me.” Her head turns to look at him and she says it again, her voice filling with emotion. “He loves me, Nick."

He swallows hard once and forces himself to look at her face, directly into her eyes. "Then you should do it, Jess. If he makes you happy, then you should go."

\---

Schmidt, Winston, Cece, and Nick all bundle into Schmidt’s car to drive Jess and Ryan to the airport. At the airport, they all line up to give Jess a hug. He is last in line. When it’s his turn, she looks into his face a beat too long before putting her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. His hands on her back press her to him. He buries his face in her hair. He wants so badly to tell her how he feels. To tell her he loves her. To tell her he'll miss her. But...Ryan is standing right there. Mr. Perfect with his perfect hair and his perfect British handsomeness. They look so *right* next to each other. He swallows his feelings. Instead he says, "Bye, Jess. Have a safe trip." "Bye, Nick," she says tearfully. "I'll write you."

They watch Jess and Ryan go through security and pass through the metal detectors. On the other side, she holds Ryan’s hand. They both turn around once to wave to the group before walking on. They watch her go until the crowd swallows her up.

\---

After they drive back to the loft, he goes into her old bedroom and sits on her bed. He lies down on his side and wraps the quilt she left behind around his shoulders. He pretends he doesn't miss her.


	2. Missing Her; Letting Her Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you love someone, set them free...

She writes to him, but he doesn’t write back. He keeps all her letters in a shoebox on his closet shelf, unopened and unread. She tries calling him but he never picks up. He makes up excuses to Schmidt, Winston, and Cece about why he doesn’t call her back. He picks up every extra shift at the bar so he doesn’t have to hang around the loft and look at their disappointed faces. After three months, she stops writing and she stops calling. A small part of him feels relieved. A larger part of him hates himself. Mostly he just misses her.

\---

Sometimes he closes his eyes and pretends she is still living across the hall. He misses seeing her curled up on the couch in her pajama outfits when he comes home from work, her basket of yarn on the living room table, her humming as she bustled around in the kitchen. He pretends that she just went on a long vacation and is coming home soon.

\---

He remembers how she always felt so close and yet so far away even when she was there next to him like some luminous earthbound angel. The way she just made the whole world feel different when she was in a room. Her soul shining from her eyes when she looked at him. The way he couldn’t help but gravitate towards her. How badly he had wanted her until he couldn’t help but kiss her that one fateful night even when she was someone else’s. Their relationship still seems like something he dreamed up after a long night of True American. He knows it was real though because he still remembers the feel of her skin against his palms, the sound of her heartbeat next to his as she lay enfolded in his arms at night, her voice the first time she told him she loved him, shouting it to the entire world. An indelible memory stamped onto every cell in his body. 

He tries to remember the person he was before her, but cannot. 

\---

A year passes. He hears Schmidt and Cece whisper about Jess and Ryan’s engagement. They know enough not to bring it up to him. Every time someone mentions her, he just silently gets up and leaves the room. That night he dreams about her. In his dreams, she is wearing a blue sari on a Mexican beach. She stands with her back to him, her raven hair spilling over her shoulders. She turns to him and the deep blue pools of her eyes are the same color as the ocean. 

\---

It's a coincidence that the same day Jess and Ryan's wedding invitation arrives, the first astronauts successfully land on Mars.

Nick looks at the expensive, cream-colored paper. It reads: _You are cordially invited to attend the marriage of Jessica Day and Ryan Geauxinue on Saturday, the Twentieth of May Two Thousand and Sixteen at Seven O'Clock In The Evening._ He imagines Jess in a white dress with pink roses in her hair and it makes his heart hurt. He checks "declines with regrets" on the RSVP card. 

He picks up a flyer that came with the rest of the mail. It says "Mars Landing" in bright red letters across the top. There is a photo of Mars with a cartoon astronaut leaping across its surface. Below that image, the text reads: "Wanted: A Few Good Men; Early Adopters for Mars Colonization." He turns it over and fills out the application page on the back. He mails both envelopes on the same day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a really hard time coming up with a title for this chapter. Still not completely happy with it; none of them seemed to fit just right. Post additional title suggestions in the comments if you have them!
> 
> I was originally going to call this chapter, "I Regret to Inform You...", and focus on Jess and Ryan's engagement. However, I felt I needed to write more material before Nick receives the wedding invitation to get into his headspace more instead of just focusing on that event. I do like the multiple layers of meaning in the phrase "I regret to inform you..." though. That is what people usually write when they can't attend a wedding. It can also refer to the additional level of regret from both sides where you know Jess will be disappointed that Nick won't be at her wedding and there is a subtle callback to Nick thinking the door is closed on his relationship with Jess when it's still open (see "Quick Hardening Caulk").
> 
> Am I really the first person to write Ryan and/or Jess/Ryan in this fandom? There wasn't an existing tag for him and his impossible to spell last name. He's a human pile of saltine dust on the show, but he's not a bad guy so I can't make him a villain even though he is an obstacle to Ness. I've noticed that while the majority of New Girl fans think that Ryan is a boring character, they think that he made the most sense with Jess within the context of the show. I wanted to convey that in this work and give their relationship the weight it deserved.


	3. Mission to Mars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick makes his journey to Mars.

Schmidt finds his acceptance letter before he does. Nick comes home from working at the bar one night and finds Schmidt sitting on the couch waiting up for him. One of Schmidt’s hands clutches an open, empty envelope. His other hand clutches a thick sheaf of official looking documents. He looks pissed. 

Schmidt throws the papers down at his feet. “What are you thinking, Nick?!” he shouts at him, waving his hands in the air.

Nick calmly picks up the papers. “Don’t freak out, Schmidt. I just think it’s time for me to go.”

"What about Jess’s wedding, man?” Schmidt says accusingly. “She asked you to be there. Why’d you say no? What should I tell her?”

Nick puts on a tight, sad smile and says, “Make her an old-fashioned and tell her I’m sorry.” 

\----

Nick makes Schmidt, Cece, and Winston swear not to tell Jess about Mars until after he’s gone. In the month of May, on a crisp spring day with a cloudless blue sky ten days before Jess’s wedding, the four of them pile into Schmidt’s car and drive to the launch site. Schmidt, Cece, and Winston line up like they did when they sent Jess to England. Nick hugs Cece first, then Winston, and last Schmidt. When it’s his turn, Schmidt gives Nick a big bear hug and holds on. He can feel that Schmidt’s face is damp against the shoulder of his spacesuit. Nick pats his back comfortingly.

“It’s alright, Schmidty,” he says. “I’m going to be okay.” 

Finally, Schmidt releases him and steps back to look at his face. 

“Fourteen years, man,” Schmidt says in a shaky voice filled with emotion.

_Everything that doesn’t need to be said passes between them._

“I’m going to be okay, Schmidt,” Nick repeats. “I’m going to see you again some day.” It feels like a lie, but the sentiment is nice. 

Nick picks up his space helmet and walks away from his friends to get in line with the other six astronauts headed for Mars.

\---

The astronauts walk single file along the narrow platform leading into the shuttle. Nick makes sure he is last so that he can turn around and see the Earth one last time with his own eyes before he goes. He knows his friends are miles away in the launch viewing area somewhere below on the ground. He imagines them with their hands shielding their eyes from the sun as they look up at the shuttle. He turns around and pauses with his hand on the handle of the door just before he closes the hatch of the space shuttle. He looks out at the barren grassy field around the launch pad. He breathes in deeply once and then exhales. He pulls the hatch door shut, turning the locking mechanism to seal the shuttle tight.

Nick sits down in one of the shuttle seats, puts on his space helmet, and buckles his seatbelt. He feels his anxiety spike as the countdown commences. The shuttle shakes with the force of the liftoff as it leaves the face of the Earth. The astronauts feel a powerful weight pushing them down into their seats like an invisible hand. The shuttle struggles to escape the Earth’s gravity for what feels like an eternity. It finally pulls out of the Earth’s atmosphere. The weight holding the astronauts down into their seats gradually lifts and the shuttle floats gently out into the dark expanse of the universe. The mission commander pushes a button to engage the rocket boosters, which propels the shuttle in the direction of Mars. Nick looks out the window and sees the Earth growing smaller and smaller, a blue orb on an inky sea. He imagines Jess getting farther and farther away from him. He puts a gloved hand to the glass and silently says goodbye to her. 

\---

It takes the shuttle eight months to reach Mars. In the claustrophobic environment of the shuttle, the astronauts quickly get acquainted with one another. Two of them are veterans of the space program (Ben – mission commander, Ron – shuttle pilot/systems engineer). The other five (Chris, Frank, John, Eli, and Nick) are volunteers with no space experience. Nick quickly learns that the other volunteers are all men with nothing left to lose.

Chris had battled with numerous drug addictions his entire life. He had lied and cheated and stolen from anyone he could in order to feed his addictions. He had tried to kick his addictions numerous times back on Earth, but he always backslid into old habits. None of his family and friends would speak to him anymore. He was using the Mars mission as an incentive to get and stay clean and show his former family and friends that he had changed. “I hurt a lot of people, but maybe this way they’ll let me tell them I’m sorry in person one day,” Chris said in a hopeful tone.

Frank was a former soldier in the US Army suffering from PTSD. When he got back from his two tours in Iraq, he had drastic mood swings where he would go from explosively angry to so depressed that he couldn’t get out of bed. He couldn’t hold down a job; his wife left him and took his kids. “I lost my family and I have already seen my friends get blown up right in front of me. Can’t see how Mars can be any worse than that,” Frank said sardonically. 

John was a biologist with early-stage stomach cancer. “I’d rather die helping mankind than stuck in some hospital bed wasting away,” he said with conviction. 

Eli was the youngest member of the crew at 18. He came from a religious family that disowned him when he was 14 when he told them he was an atheist. He had spent the last four years as a homeless vagabond grabbing odd jobs where he could. “I miss my family, but fuck ‘em. I believe in the truth more,” Eli said defiantly.

When the other astronauts turn to Nick expectantly, he says, “It’s about a girl…" he pauses. "It’s always about a girl…" The other astronauts nod sympathetically in understanding.

\---

With little to pass the time, all of the astronauts take to sitting around and reading the extensive technical manuals about the shuttle and books about creating livable colonies on Mars. It reminds Nick of studying for the bar in his past life. 

Nick gets used to being weightless. Floating to get where he needs to go is like swimming on air. He gets used to the tasteless, powdery food. He remembers how he and Winston used to pretend they were astronauts when they were kids in Chicago, drinking Tang and eating ‘space ice cream,’ and how he always thought that is what the future would taste like. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally going to have the shuttle journey and Nick's early life on Mars be one chapter called "Mars Landing" but I thought it felt more organic to split it into two chapters. That allowed me to do some more world building and play around with the sci-fi elements more. 
> 
> I cut out a lot of the technical operations on the shuttle because I felt it just didn't read very well in the narrative. In real life, astronauts aboard the International Space Station actually have very busy schedules where they perform research experiments and maintain the shuttle equipment, but for this AU we can pretend that there is a government conspiracy to send under-trained people to Mars as "cannon fodder" to build the initial colonies since it's really risky and dangerous. That's why they chose all these "men with nothing to lose" for the mission. I think the last two paragraphs convey Nick's mindset and the loneliness of the space journey effectively without having to go into all those technical details.


	4. Mars Landing I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It turns out that it takes more than intergalactic space travel for Nick Miller to forget about Jessica Day.

Mars finally comes into view. The shuttle makes a bumpy landing near the equator. “Good job,” the mission commander says to the shuttle pilot with an ironic twist of his mouth. “You didn’t kill us.” 

All the astronauts don their spacesuits and space helmets and get out to stretch their legs. When Nick jumps down from the shuttle, he lands with a soft puff of dust. Everything is covered with dust. Everywhere he looks is an endless rust-colored desert under a tangerine sky. Nick fills the scorch of the sun on his back. _‘Uninhabitable,’_ he thinks.

\---

They are the second space crew to land successfully on Mars. They have to live in the shuttle the first month while they build more underground bunkers for shelter. They work for twelve-hour days. Nick feels like he falls into bed moments before he has to get up again. His hands become rough and calloused with the work. His body aches for rest. He remembers how Coach used to tell him to get some exercise so he wouldn’t keel over and die and wishes now that he had followed that advice.

\--

It gets a little better once the underground bunkers are built. They no longer have to wear their spacesuits everywhere, but the monotony of the gray walls and the lack of sunlight and fresh air make Nick feel even more claustrophobic than he did when he lived in the shuttle. He goes on field missions whenever he can so he can stay out of the bunkers. 

Nick misses the sun. 

\---

The astronauts’ first priority is to search for water. They hike through canyons and mountains and sand dunes. It feels like they are forever walking into the horizon into the permanent veil of dust and Nick imagines this is what the first American pioneers must have felt like on Earth.

They follow sediment trails in the canyons and collect hydrated minerals to bring back to base camp. They explore the subterranean caves and ancient hot springs at Gusey Crater and take back specimen samples for John to analyze for signs of Martian life. 

They drive space rovers to the northern plains of Mars to drill for water in the sheet ice. They take chunks of sheet ice back to the bunkers to melt down to make an artificial underground lake. Ben teaches them how to terraform and decontaminate small portions of Martian soil and for the first time they are able to grow plants in the toxic terrain, some wispy trees and a few scrubby vegetables. Nick marvels at being able to make things to grow. 

They are able to create a small underground park by the manmade lake with an artificial sun. 

\---

Sometimes Nick sits in the underground park by the lake and imagines he is back on Earth. He thinks about the fight he had with Jess about the future. He thinks about never being enough, not being able to grow up. But then he looks out at this small oasis of green rising out of this inhospitable desert and thinks about what he has learned to do with his hands, about creating something beautiful and decent and good from nothing at all. 

\---

At night, Nick puts on his spacesuit and dons his thermal regulator so he can go outside into the frigid Martian air and see the stars. This is the one thing he loves most about living on Mars. He has lived in cities his whole life where light pollution has drowned out the night sky. Now the Martian sky he lives under is littered with stars. A billion constellations winking back at him against the impenetrable inky abyss and the reflected light of two moons. When he gazes up at the Martian night sky, Nick can feel the infinite possibilities of the universe spanning out before him and it makes him feel both impossibly small and impossibly large all at the same time. He wishes he could share it with her.

\---

One glacial Martian night, light, fluffy carbon dioxide powder falls outside the bunkers like snow. The crew jokes that it feels like Christmas has come early. Nick thinks back to when he turned on the Christmas lights for Jess to make her smile. He remembers their first and only Christmas as a couple in Chicago, watching her bake cookies in the kitchen with his mom. The memories warm him from the inside out.

\---

Once they have a steady source of water, they build solar panels and nuclear power plants to establish a reliable power grid. They use the new energy sources to split water into hydrogen and oxygen so they can make rocket fuel.

Ben dreams about being the mission commander with the first crew to send a shuttle from Mars back to Earth. They work on improving the speed and accuracy of their space capsule landings. Spacecraft keep getting lost trying to make return missions because their navigation systems cannot establish a reliable connection with the mission control center back on Earth. When Ron tells Ben that they just lost their one-hundredth space capsule, Nick thinks Ben might cry. 

\---

When they finally establish a consistent satellite connection with the Deep Space Network, everyone whoops in delight. “No more space food!” Ben shouts gleefully. They are quickly able to get shuttle transit times from Mars to Earth down from eight months to one month within the year. 

They all eagerly await letters and packages from Earth. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tough chapter to write. I was going to do a time jump but I thought I needed to put in more descriptive imagery about Mars since this is supposed to be a sci-fi fic after all; I ended up having enough material for another chapter. I didn't know anything about Mars when I started this fic so I had to do some research so I could do the proper world-building. I hope it was evocative enough.


	5. Mars Landing II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick's life on Mars.

Nick has been living on Mars Landing for two years. He is a long-haul truck driver for a government agency that ships munitions and supplies globally across Mars. They give him a corporate apartment to live in with gray walls. It reminds Nick of living in the underground bunkers when he first got to Mars. He hates it but he is never home anyway. His job keeps him on the road for twelve-hour shifts at a time. He only goes home to sleep for a few hours before he is back on the road again. He prefers it that way; he finds the rigid structure of his routine comforting.

\---

Schmidt writes him frequently. 

Nick smiles at a photo of a beaming Schmidt looking down at a tired, but proud Cece holding their newborn twin son and daughter. He keeps it taped on his fridge so he can see it every day. It reminds him of what happiness feels like. 

Schmidt tells him about his niece and nephew: their first yawn, their first steps, the first time they called him ‘Dada.’ He talks about vacations he takes with Cece and about visiting Nick’s family in Chicago. He talks about leaving AssStrat and starting his own marketing firm. He doesn't talk about Jess, but one day Cece sends him a vacation photo of her and Schmidt and Jess and Ryan standing in front of Jess and Ryan's lake house in Portland. She looks happy. He touches her face in the photo every night and sleeps with it under his pillow. He dreams of her.

In his dreams, she holds the hands of a raven-haired girl with brown eyes and a sandy-haired boy with blue eyes. They look up at her adoringly. She takes them horseback riding and sailing on the lake. She bakes them cookies, and sews them clothes, and reads to them before kissing them on the forehead and tucking them in to sleep at night. She is happy.

\----

Winston is sometimes able to reach him on the unreliable space phone. He tells Nick about joining the army reserves and about his new police partner Aly. Nick reads between the lines, smiles to himself, and tells Winnie to go get her.

\---

It's a Thursday when Nick learns that Tran is dead. Kai sends a telegraph through the intergalactic post with the obituary and the time of the funeral back on Earth. He doesn't go, but sits at a bench in the underground park the day of the funeral and remembers his friend.

An elderly gray-haired dog suddenly appears and lies at his feet. Nick pets him. The dog looks up at him. He has Tran's eyes. Nick smiles and says, "Hey, buddy, I knew you would make it up here eventually." 

The dog looks at him with worried eyes. Nick thinks back to another desert back on Earth. 

“You don’t have to worry about me, Tran. You know why I’m okay?... Because I met her.” 

He buys a soft pretzel and shares it with the dog. 

He feels less lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt bad for leaving Nick all alone up there. Seemed apt that Tran would be there when Nick needed him most. I had to rewrite the ending a few times because a downer ending didn't feel quite right. I hope it was uplifting. Nick's okay because he met Jess. She always made him stronger. :)


	6. The Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How the Zombie Apocalypse begins...

Patient Zero is a US government military scientist. He is a senior scientist on the biochemical warfare division. His team is responsible for genetically engineering viruses for military applications. Their newest project involves creating an airborne rabies-flu hybrid that would be fatal on contact. It would give the US a tactical advantage over their foreign enemies. US military leaders praise the innovation of the team. “We’re the good guys,” one military higher-up said. “We’d never use it, but it’s good for other nations to know we have a trump card. We just can’t let this fall into the wrong hands.” All the other military leaders nod sagely in agreement, confident in the technical knowledge of their scientists. 

All it takes is one little slip up.

\---

Dr. Robert Smith had just spent 48 hours in the lab analyzing cell samples. Just as he is about to shut down the lab and go home, he realizes one of the junior scientists in the lab had forgotten to dissect the brains of the newly deceased lab rats for analysis. The data is due in four hours and he is the only one left in the lab. “Figures,” he huffs to himself. He puts on his gloves and hazmat suit and goes into the animal lab room to get to work.

His hands shake from exhaustion as he dissects the brains. He doesn't realize when his scalpel slips and makes a minute incision in his glove. 

After completing the tissue dissections, Dr. Smith disposes of his gloves and hazmat suit and goes through the decontamination shower. He logs the data in the lab computer and writes up a hasty analysis for his military bosses. Then he locks up the lab and goes home to get some sleep.

\---

When Dr. Smith wakes up the next morning, he feels like he has just gotten hit by a freight train. His entire body aches. _'Ugh,'_ he thinks to himself, _'Can’t pull all-nighters like I used to.'_ He thinks about calling in sick to work but his thoughts are preoccupied with the big data presentation his team has today. He would get reamed out for being a senior scientist and not setting a good example to the junior scientists by missing a presentation. Reluctantly, he gets out of bed and gets ready for work.

\---

”You look awful,” his colleague Dr. Henry Morris says to him when Dr. Smith arrives to work.

“Gee, thanks,” Dr. Smith replies sarcastically.

Dr. Morris pats his arm sympathetically and hands him a cup of coffee. “Drink some of this and try not to look like death during the presentation.”

\---

Dr. Smith sweats and stumbles through the presentation. Dr. Morris has to keep interjecting to put the presentation back on track. The junior scientists on the team look at Dr. Smith in concern; it is unlike him to be so unprepared. The military leaders frown in disapproval. 

“I thought you gentlemen would be more prepared than this. We’ve given you a lot of time and money for this project so there is no excuse for this mess,” one military colonel berates them. 

Dr. Morris leaps to Dr. Smith’s defense. “I’m sorry, but my colleague is just feeling a bit under the weather today. Can we try this again tomorrow?” 

“Fine,” the colonel says sharply, with a wave of his hand. “Tomorrow. And this better be all straightened out by then.”

The military leaders leave the conference room and the scientists start walking back to their lab.

”Thanks, Henry,” Dr. Smith says to Dr. Morris gratefully. 

“Don’t sweat it, Rob, or do…” Dr. Morris says pointing to Dr. Smith’s lab coat, which is completely soaked through the underarms and back. “I think you should go home, Rob. Take some cold medicine and chug some vitamin C so you’re ready for tomorrow.” 

Normally, Dr. Smith would hate to leave work early, especially on the eve of a large presentation, but he has a splitting headache so he agrees. 

“You okay to drive, Rob?” Dr Morris asks him. “I can give you a ride home.” 

Dr. Smith shakes his head and says, “Stay here and clean the data. Make sure the junior scientists are up to speed for tomorrow’s presentation. I’ll take the bus home.”

\---

On the bus, Dr. Smith can barely keep his eyes open. His head feels feverish, but chills run through the rest of his body. He lays his head against the cool bus window.

\---

The woman looks at the man in the white lab coat with concern. He hasn’t moved in over 15 minutes. She gets up from her seat and goes over to tap him on the shoulder. 

“Sir? Are you okay, sir?”

When he turns to her, the last thing she sees are the dark gray pupils of his lifeless eyes before he sinks his teeth into her throat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whenever I think about the apocalypse, I always hear that Blue Oyster Cult song ["Don't Fear the Reaper" ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClQcUyhoxTg) playing in my head. Anyone who is a fan of Stephen King knows what I'm talking about :) 
> 
> Brace yourself, dear readers, here comes the drop...
> 
> PS - I had some tense issues with this chapter. I think I used present tense in the previous chapters and switched to past tense somewhere in this chapter. Let me know if you see any tense or other grammar issues in this section so I can correct them.


	7. Humanity Endures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive." - Dalai Lama

World governments are slow to act and contain the spread of the infection because the symptoms of the new virus start out just like the flu or the common cold before quickly progressing into a rabid aggression and a hunger for human flesh. By the time they realize the severity of the problem, it is too late.

There is mass panic on Earth as countries' governments try in vain to quarantine the infected. After multiple reports of zombie attacks in crowded urban areas and on public transportation, people become afraid to leave their homes. Everyone only ventures out long enough to buy a few meager groceries before rushing back to their homes for shelter. The virus strikes indiscriminately: the very young, the very old, the seemingly healthy are all susceptible to "turning" at any time. It spreads through the air as well as through the bite of the infected. Some are immune to the airborne virus; none are immune to being bitten. Everyone is regarded with suspicion. Families and whole communities start shunning and ostracizing anyone with the slightest sign of illness, even a feeble cough or a slight sniffle. People start stockpiling food and weapons. There are mass uprisings as resources become scarce. Street fights between the rich and the poor are rampant. 

Nick follows it all obsessively on the delayed broadcasts from Mars television and radio and silently prays for the safety of his friends and family.

\---

The failure of government response to the viral outbreak drives many citizens to form their own armies to fight the infected.

Coach and May join resistance fighters in New York attempting to transport people to safety outside of the city. They die fighting back to back when they get trapped in an apartment building trying to save a family of five from a zombie horde. 

Nick plants two oak saplings in the underground park in their memory. Coach had said that he liked oak trees once, how he thought they were so strong and sturdy that it seemed that nothing could bend them.

\---

The world governments set up a lottery to transport people to the Mars colony. The sale and price gouging of tickets on the black market is rampant. It is evident that not everyone is going to make it out.

Nick’s family was able to secure tickets on one of the early civilian shuttles to Mars. Unfortunately, the shuttle explodes just after liftoff, even before breaking through the Earth’s atmosphere. _‘Mechanical failure,’_ reads the impersonal government document Nick receives. Nick feels numb when he hears the news. His entire family lost to the ether in an instant. He is grateful that the last thing his ma heard him say to her was, _“I love you. See you soon.”_

\--- 

Schmidt sends word to Nick that he was able to get his family out and they are on the next shuttle to Mars.

\---

Schmidt and Cece arrive on a Monday with their two small children, Jacob and Olivia, in tow. Nick hugs them both tightly when they get off the shuttle. “Told you we would see each other again, Schmidty,” he says into Schmidt’s shoulder.

He can't help himself from looking behind them expectantly. When he looks back at Schmidt and Cece they shake their heads sadly and he feels his shoulders slump.

"They volunteered to stay behind, Nick," Schmidt tells him. "They had immunity from the airborne virus and there were so many children at Jess's school that had lost parents to the infection. No one else would take them in or get them out. No one would even touch them. Jess and Ryan stayed behind so they wouldn't be alone."

Nick nods his head sadly in understanding. _‘She can’t help what she is,’_ he thinks to himself. _‘She can’t not give love and comfort to someone in pain.’_

Nick looks at his niece and nephew peering shyly around Cece and Schmidt's legs at him. Nick gets down on one knee so he is on their eye-level. 

"Hey, munchkins," Nick says in a soft, gentle tone. 

"This is your Uncle Nick," Schmidt says, looking down at their heads.

Jacob peers at him in awe. "Uncle Nick the Astronaut?" 

Nick chuckles. "Guess that's me." 

The twins run up to him and tackle him in a hug, throwing their arms around him. He closes his eyes holding them near his heart. The joyful exuberance of youth surrounds him. "Glad I finally got to meet you," he says through a tearful smile. 

\---

Schmidt and Cece move into a small apartment two blocks from Nick's place. Schmidt finds work with the public health department creating marketing campaigns to educate people about disease prevention and organizing aid relief back on Earth. Cece works as a tour guide for new arrivals, acclimating them to life on Mars. 

\---

Aly and Winston arrive a few weeks later. They were recruited to be officers on the Mars Intergalactic Space Station. They help maintain communication networks on Mars and act as peacekeeping officers when needed. 

Nick, Schmidt, and Cece are there to welcome Winston and Aly when they exit their shuttle at the landing site. 

Winston greets Nick with their old childhood handshake before pulling him into a hug.

"Guess we both got to be astronauts, huh?" Winston said. "Who would have thought two crazy kids from Chicago would both get to see Mars one day?"

Aly shows them her wedding ring. "We eloped," Winston said. "No time like the present. When I thought about what was important in my life, I wanted her there for all of it. Partner in work and life."

Aly sticks her finger down her throat and makes a gagging sound. "My husband gets real sappy sometimes.” She steps up on her toes and kisses Winston’s cheek. "Love you, you sentimental dork," she says affectionately.

\----

For the first time in years, Nick feels some of the tension in his gut unravel knowing his friends are safe close by, but Nick still lies awake at night thinking about how Jess is doing back on Earth. He imagines her as a shining beacon of humanity, a benevolent spirit using her kindness and optimism to protect people from the darkness that has befallen the world.

He prays that living through all the horror and terror which she has had to bear witness to doesn’t take all the love she has to give the world, that she makes it through with her soul intact.

He prays that someone is there to comfort her and that she doesn’t have to die in fear, alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, dear readers, the chasm goes even deeper. The next chapter is going to hurt...


	8. Habeas Corpus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rough translation: _"You must have the body."_

It is a Tuesday when Nick hears the news.

He just got back from a twelve-hour drive delivering government munitions to the far side of Mars. He just wants to crawl into his bed and sleep for the next twenty-four hours.

When he opens his apartment door, he finds Schmidt, Winston, and Cece sitting around his dining room table talking with quiet, tight voices. They fall silent and look up when they hear him enter.

"What's going on?" Nick asks guardedly as he closes the door.

 _"Don't tell him now,"_ Schmidt hisses to Winston and Cece. "He just got back."

Cece places her hand on top of Schmidt’s hand on the table. "He has to know sooner or later, babe,” she says gently. “We can't put this off any longer." 

"Out with it, guys," Nick says tiredly. "I'm not in the mood."

"It's Jess," Winston says. 

Nick is suddenly wide awake. "What about her?"

The three glance at each other and then back at him.

"She's dead...she died," Cece says her eyes filling up with tears.

Nick feels like he has just been stabbed in the chest. He grabs at his heart. He can’t breathe. Giant fingers crush his lungs. His legs give way from underneath him and he collapses to his hands and knees on the ground. His friends rush over to him. Schmidt quickly grabs the oxygen mask on his uniform and pulls it down over his face. Schmidt says something to him but his brain can't make it out. All he can hear is an otherworldy, inhuman scream echoing through his head. He can feel himself panicking. His pulse rips through his body at 100 miles per hour. His body trembles and shakes. He closes his eyes and tries to calm himself down, but he can't. He hears himself just say _"No"_ over and over and over again in a strangled voice. A staccato chorus in a voice not his own. He feels Schmidt grab his arm, roll up his sleeve, and jab a needle into the inside of his elbow. He feels himself start to float away from his own body. The light from the room shrinks down to a pinhole. Schmidt and Winston gently lay his body down on the ground as he blacks out.

\---

Schmidt and Winston manage to drag his limp body to bed. He is curled up in a fetal position under his sheets. Hours pass but Nick has lost all sense of time. He hears Schmidt, Winston, and Cece moving around the apartment. He hears Cece weeping in another room and Schmidt trying to comfort her. He hears them talking in hushed, furtive whispers. 

_"We shouldn't have told him,"_ he hears Schmidt argue. _“What good does it do him for him to know?"_

 _"We couldn't keep him in the dark forever,"_ Winston says. _"There would never have been a good way to tell him, a good time to tell him, and he needed to know."_

He closes his eyes and falls into a dreamless sleep.

\---

He stays in bed with the covers pulled over his head for four weeks. One day Schmidt pops his head into his room and sees that he is awake, or at least his eyes are open. Schmidt enters his room and sits down on the edge of his bed. 

"How are you feeling today, Nick?" Schmidt asks him in a soft, soothing voice. 

No response. 

Schmidt sighs sadly. "Please talk to me, Nick," he pleads.

"She's alive," Nick states simply, staring into the middle distance.

Schmidt gently says, "They found Ryan's body, Nick. They found the bodies of twenty of their students." 

Nick’s composure slips for a second before his face becomes a blank, impassive mask again. For the first time since Schmidt has entered the room, Nick turns and focuses directly on his face. He asks, "Did they find hers?"

"No, but..."

"She's still alive, Schmidt," Nick says firmly, turning his face away. His eyes become unfocused into the middle distance again.

Schmidt looks at him sadly and pats his leg. "Will you eat something now?"

Nick shakes his head. "She's alive," he breathes out.


	9. Pepperwood, Resurrected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick finds what he needs on the black market.

_"Psst..."_ Nick whispers to the bartender at the sketchy bar at the edge of the compound on the dark side of Mars. He taps his nose twice. The bartender nods his head once in acknowledgement and leaves to enter a back office. Big Bob emerges from the office.

"Nick!" Big Bob says in greeting. He wraps him in a one-armed bear hug. "Long time no see."

"It's good to see you too, Big Bob."

"Let me get you a drink so we can catch up." Big Bob turns around to grab a bottle of whiskey. 

"I'd love to, but maybe some other time. I heard you're the guy to see about _getting what you need._ " Nick puts extended emphasis on the end of his sentence and looks at Big Bob with wide eyes so the man will catch his meaning.

Big Bob's jolly demeanor changes and he quickly looks around the bar to make sure none of the other patrons are listening in.

 _"You aren't working with the feds are you, Nick? Because that would be a Very. Bad. Idea to do that here..."_ he says with a menacing whisper.

Nick gives a tiny shake of his head for no, once. 

"Let's talk business," Big Bob says brusquely.

He abruptly turns and walks into the back office. Nick follows him closing the office's door behind him.

\---

In the office, Big Bob pats Nick down for a wire and weapons. "Sorry, Nick," Big Bob says apologetically afterwards. "Can't be too careful these days."

"It's alright, Big Bob, I understand," Nick says, lowering his arms back to his sides. 

Big Bob sits down in the office chair behind the desk. "So what do you need, Nick?" 

"I need an ID for Earthbound travel." 

Big Bob reaches under his desk and lifts a floorboard to reveal a secret compartment. He pulls out a sheaf of thick documents. "Are you sure, Nick? It'll cost you. They're still trying to get people out."

"I'm sure."

"Fifty grand."

Nick reaches into his jacket and pulls out a wad of cash. Big Bob counts it and stashes it in a metal cash box. He takes a decrepit-looking camera sitting on his desk and snaps Nick’s picture. Nick blinks until the multi-colored spots from the camera flash fade from his vision. The camera is connected to a computer monitor which displays his photograph. Big Bob asks, "What name do you want on the documents?" 

After a beat, Nick says, "Julius Pepperwood."

Big Bob enters the name into the computer. A short while later, a printer pops out a laminated plastic ID card with Nick's photo. Big Bob signs the paper documents with a messy scrawl and stamps it with a seal to make it look official before handing them to Nick. He says, "It's not my business what you do with this, I'm just the supplier, and I wouldn't tell this to anyone else, but since we're old friends, I'll let you know that this isn't all you need to go back there, Nick." He points to the papers. "This is the bare minimum you need to even *think* about going back to Earth, but you still need to get by government security and protect yourself when you're down there."

Big Bob gets up from his desk and heads to a wall with a framed picture. He tilts the picture to the side to reveal a large gun safe. He opens the safe and starts pulling out weapons and gear. "Blueprints of the government flight building. Flight pod manual. Government security-grade flight suit with bulletproof vest and helmet. Biohazard mask. Pistols (I prefer a Glock or a Smith & Wesson). Extra ammo."

"How much?"

"Another fifty grand."

Nick pulls out another wad of cash and hands it over to Big Bob. Big Bob starts putting the gear and weapons into a nondescript box. "You've been on Mars Landing a long time so I don't know what your immunity is to the virus. When you get down there, limit exposure when you're outside. Keep your mask on. Don't get stuck outside at night. Don't let them surround you; always have an exit strategy. Don't waste your ammo; aim for the brain. And this goes without saying: don't get bitten. Be smart, or rather, _don't be dumb._ Watch your back." He hands the heavy box to Nick. 

"Thanks, Big Bob." Nick says gratefully. Nick turns to leave the office.

From the desk, Big Bob says to his back, "It's for her, isn't it?"

Nick pauses, his hand on the doorknob of the office's door. "It's always been her," he says simply. He opens the door and leaves, not looking back.

\---

He takes the long overdue six months of sick leave he has accumulated at his job. Schmidt, Cece, Winston, and Aly leave him alone thinking he has accepted the news and needs time to grieve. Nick spends two weeks poring over the government building blueprints and the flight pod manual, memorizing every detail. He practices shooting paper targets and sleeping with his biohazard mask on. He packs first aid supplies and as much nonperishable food as his pack can carry without weighing him down. He plans to leave on a Sunday.

\---

Getting into the government flight building is easier than Nick expects. _'I guess if you act like you belong, people assume you do,'_ Nick thinks. When he reaches the metal detectors he puts his gear on the conveyor belt and hands his photo ID and documents to the guard. Nick experiences a brief moment of panic when the guard squints at his ID and looks at his face. A chorus of _'Shit. Shit. Shit.'_ runs through Nick's head and he feels sweat pool at the back of his flight suit, but the guard just hands his ID and documents back to him. His mission papers read: _'Top Secret Clearance: Munitions Delivery - Chicago.'_

"Chicago, huh?" the guard says. "Bring back some of the good pizza, won't you? We've been up here for years, but Mars pizza still sucks. Must be the water."

"Yeah. Thin crust pizza? No thank you. I'm from Chicago," Nick jokes weakly. 

The guard waves him through and hands him a set of keys. On the other side of the metal detectors around the corner and out of earshot of the guard, Nick closes his eyes and lets out a shaky breath. He approaches the individual flight pods and gets into one, stowing his gear carefully in the back. He sits in front of the control panel and puts on his oxygen regulator and his space helmet. He closes his eyes and sees the manual in his mind's eye. It takes him three tries before he is able to start the pod. It lurches forward on the tarmac slowly before quickly accelerating and taking off into the stratosphere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know Big Bob totally ships Ness :)
> 
> "Pepperwood" is one of my favorite episodes of New Girl so I had to work that in. Nick would totally use that alias again, especially to protect Jess. Pepperwood lives!


	10. Portland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the life she led without him...

The flight pod barely has enough fuel to get to Portland. Nick is paranoid about using government fuel stations lest his true identity be discovered and government agents capture him before he is able to find her. He leaves the fuel-less flight pod in an airport hangar at Portland International. He manages to find an unlocked car in the airport’s parking lot with the keys still on the dashboard and a half-full tank of gas. He drives to Jess’s childhood home. 

\---

The front door to Jess’s childhood home is slightly ajar and Nick pushes it open cautiously. Inside it is deathly quiet. His footsteps on the wooden floors creak loudly but nothing or no one comes down to investigate the noise. Nick closes the front door behind him; he doesn’t want to be surprised by anything or anyone sneaking up behind him. 

Nick peers into the kitchen. The clutter of plates on the table and in the sink makes it appear like a normal afternoon and Jess’s mom Joan has just briefly stepped foot outside after having lunch. He feels a pang in his heart as he remembers how he and Jess never made it to Portland to meet her parents as a couple, how he never got to be introduced to them as her boyfriend, how he never got the chance to win Bob over. He wonders what happened to Bob and Joan; he hopes they made it out and are somewhere safe on Mars.

Nick walks over to the living room. Books, papers, and clothes are strewn everywhere like someone had packed in a hurry but Nick is relieved to find that there is no evidence of blood or shotgun shells to indicate a struggle. The area seems quiet and safe.

Nick walks upstairs to Jess’s childhood bedroom. Inside it is like a time capsule of Jess’s childhood. The room seems to be holding its breath, as if expecting high school Jess to return at any moment. He sits on her bed and looks at the framed photos on her desk of younger versions of her. He remembers how she used to tell him stories about being a high school nerd, either invisible or ostracized. He wonders what kind of person he would have turned out to be if he had met her then; he would have noticed her. He takes a few of the photos out of their frames and stashes them in his gear bag: her and Cece on a playground, her and her mom at a dance recital, her and her dad on her first day of school. He knows about wanting to hang on to the past, being afraid the good parts of yourself will just slip away as your memories fade, how you need something concrete to put your hands on to remind yourself of them. He hopes he can give the photos to her in person soon.

\---

Nick takes an hour to search through the house, but the rest of it is unremarkable. Nick gets back in his car and takes the photograph of Cece and Schmidt and Ryan and Jess at the lake house out of his flight suit pocket. He is unsure of the address but he tries to match up the streets to clues in the picture. 

There is a sense of foreboding in the air. He worries about running into zombie hordes or bands of human marauders but the picturesque streets are still eerily empty in the mid-afternoon as he drives down them.

He finally finds the lake house at the end of a quiet tree-lined street. He traces the address numbers with his fingers before he enters. Inside it's silent and dark. It smells like her, notes of vanilla and cinnamon. He walks through their living room. He sees her touch everywhere: the colorful throw on the back of the couch, the bright paintings on the walls, her books on the coffee table, her knitting left in a basket by the window seat. He looks at framed pictures of Ryan and Jess on the mantelpiece: their wedding, their honeymoon, him and her at the beach.

He picks up their wedding picture. She looks radiant in her white satin wedding dress but she is looking slightly away from the camera. He thinks her smile is a little sad. _'I should have been there,'_ Nick thinks to himself. _'I broke her heart.'_ He puts the picture back down on the mantel.

He cautiously walks from room to room to make sure he is truly alone.

He braces himself to find the paraphernalia of parenthood, but there doesn't appear to be any. No pictures of kids or stuffed animals or tiny clothes or alphabet blocks strewn over the floor. It makes him feel a mixture of profound sadness and great relief. Sad that she never got to be a mother. Relieved that he doesn't have to come face to face with a product of her life without him. Sad that they never got the chance to reach that step together. Relieved that there isn't another young life that has had to live through this hellish time on Earth. 

In a downstairs office, he finds letterhead stationary with “Day and Geauxinue Montessori School” printed on the top. He feels the warm glow of pride fill his chest. They must have founded a school in Portland together; Jess finally got to be a teacher at a school that deserved her. Nick notes the address of the school written on the letterhead.

\---

The school is a 15 minute drive from the lake house. When he arrives at the location, he sees the main school building has been reduced to a pile of rubble. The roof is completely caved in. Strings of old crime scene tape around the entrance indicate the authorities have already been through in the near-distant past. He stands there for thirty minutes just staring at it. He knows he is exposed and vulnerable standing out here but his body is rooted to the spot. He can't leave and he can’t bring himself to go inside the building and dig through the debris. He can feel tentacles of fear and doubt crawl up his spine. His traitorous imagination goes into overdrive with visions of Jess trapped under the rubble. He can feel the beginnings of a panic attack bubble up from his chest. _‘She’s not in there,’_ he says to calm himself down. _‘She’s still alive.’_ He says this as a mantra over and over to himself until the panic subsides. He is finally able to turn himself away from the building. He gets back in his car and drives back to the lake house.

\---

Back at the lake house, he stands out on the back deck and watches the sun slip down below the horizon. The last remaining sunlight streaks the water alternating shades of fiery orange and golden yellow. He thinks about the life he could have had with her. Not here in this lake house in Portland, but in a different place, a different time that belonged only to them. He thinks about the fight they had about the future. He had let his own fear blind him to her; she had needed him then and he hadn’t seen it. He had been terrified of losing her by wishing for something more than what they already had, but she had been terrified of losing him too. She had been afraid that she wasn’t enough for him, that one day he would wake up and decide that he didn’t want her any more. That one day she would wake up and everything in their relationship just wouldn’t be real, gone in an instant. Better to have a concrete ‘life plan’ then the hope of some ephemeral happiness that would never last. He had turned her away when she needed him to tell her how he felt, tell her their love was real and not something that could be so easily broken, that he wouldn’t just wake up one day and take everything back. She hadn’t been asking him for a perfect life; she had been asking him for hope. 

\---

When night falls on Portland, Nick goes back inside the lake house and makes sure all the doors and windows are secure.

He explores the upper level of the lake house. One room is a crafts room. Construction paper and yarn are strewn about the room in ordered chaos. He finds a memory box in one corner of the room. He opens it and finds the green paper bracelet he gave her in Mexico staring back at him. He feels a pang in his chest. _She kept it._ A good omen. He presses it close to his heart before tucking it away safely in his gear bag. 

He goes into the main bedroom. Moonlight streams through the curtains. He double checks that all the windows are secure and barricades the bedroom door with the dresser. He puts a pistol on the nightstand and then curls up on her side of the bed. He sleeps. 

\---

Nick spends a month in Portland scouring the neighborhoods for signs of Jess during the day on foot. He runs into a couple of close calls at sunset when the zombie hordes come out to feed, but always manages to make it back safely inside the lake house by nightfall. He sees no signs of any other humans. After spending a month in Portland and coming up empty, Nick decides to drive along the California coast to LA. 


	11. Los Angeles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick revisits the city from his past life.

He knows that going to Los Angeles is probably a desperate, Hail Mary pass but he has no other clues to go on. He just has a gut feeling that if Jess were alive, she would go there. 

It takes Nick two weeks to travel the approximately one thousand miles from Portland to LA. He drives when he can, but functioning cars and fuel are hard to come by so he is forced to travel on foot the majority of the time. The journey takes him through the narrow winding roads and rural farmlands of California. Zombies are less of a concern in these wide open spaces than the desperate humans forced out of cities and left behind by the mass exodus to Mars. Nick stays clear of farm houses to avoid running into violent and unpredictable outlaws. He sleeps lightly in barns with his guns close at hand.

\---

After two long weeks, Nick finally steps foot in Los Angeles.

The mid-morning sun burns high and bright as Nick walks through Griffith Park. He tries to ignore the gnawing anxiety in his gut of having to navigate hiking trails surrounded by tall underbrush and dense trees. With a start, Nick realizes he can see several zombies stumbling towards him on the horizon, too close for comfort. They usually feed closer to dusk when the mask of darkness allows their victims to be disoriented and easy to capture prey. The tight spaces of the city must be overrun with them. He ducks off the trail and into the underbrush before they notice him. He gives them a wide berth before continuing on towards the city center.

\---

When Nick enters downtown LA, everything feels eerily familiar yet totally foreign. An ominous silence fills the city. Garbage litters the street. There is no sign of life on the empty roads but Nick gets the unsettling feeling that someone or something is always watching him, lurking just out of sight around the dark corners of the abandoned buildings and narrow alleyways. 

\---

Nick stops by The Griffin. He hesitates at the bar entrance. The bar is missing its door; it appears to have been pulled off its hinges. He stands in the doorway scanning the bar, but everything is dark, still, and silent within. The bar is a mess of broken tables and stools. Its floor is littered with shards of broken glass. Telltale signs of a struggle. He checks the bar’s back office and bathrooms cautiously; they are messy but empty. He walks behind the bar and tries to remember the last time he was here. It feels like a lifetime ago. He stops himself from reminiscing too long and leaves the bar, venturing deeper into the city. 

\---

Nick finally reaches the loft. The lobby of the building is quiet and safe. He listens for activity as he climbs the stairs but everything is calm and still. When he reaches Apartment 4D and tries the door, it’s unlocked. Inside it looks exactly how he remembers it: the brown overstuffed couch, the cluttered dining room table, the fancy-fixed sink. It feels comforting and familiar with the afternoon sun streaming through the windows.

Suddenly, Nick hears a faint rustle near the bedrooms and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. _'Please don't be a kid,'_ he prays. He removes his gun from its holster and slowly approaches the closed door to Jess's former bedroom. He slowly turns the doorknob and cracks open the door, gun at the ready.

And there she is...just as beautiful as she always was with her raven hair flowing over the pillow. She is asleep, her chest rises and falls slowly with each breath. _'I must be hallucinating,'_ Nick thinks to himself. He had wanted her to be here so badly. He re-holsters his gun and approaches the bed. He reaches a shaking hand out to her and his gloved fingers graze her cheek. She wakes up with a start and reaches for the gun on her nightstand. He grabs her wrist.

"Jess! Jess, it’s me." He takes off his biohazard mask with his free hand so she can see his face.

"Nick?" she says in disbelief. He lets go of her wrist.

They can only stare at each other; the years fall away. 

“I thought you were dead,” he breathes out. 

She looks away from him with haunted eyes, “Ryan died. The infected breached the perimeter of the school. We put the school into lockdown, but we didn’t know that one of the students had already been infected and was barricaded in with us until it was too late. Ryan stayed behind to detonate the building to contain the infected and buy the other students more time to escape, but the detonator was faulty and it went off too soon. The roof collapsed before we could make it out. I was lucky; the majority of the debris missed me and I was able to dig myself out." She pauses and in a pained whisper says, "I couldn’t save them.”

She sits up and touches his face with her hand, her eyes filling up. Her voice full of emotion she asks, "If you thought I was dead, why did you come back?”

His hand goes up to cup her face, his thumb wiping away a tear that has fallen on her cheek. He looks into the endless blue pools of her eyes.

“Because I could still feel you, Jess. I could still feel that you were alive out there somewhere and even if you weren’t, I could never forgive myself if I didn’t look for you.”

The intensity of his gaze makes her look away from him.

"How did you even get here, Nick?"

He shows her his fake ID for interspace Earth travel. 

"They quarantined the air space a month ago. That means no more flights out of Earth. You can never go home again, Nick. You shouldn’t have come," she says sadly looking away from him.

He turns her face back towards him with his hand so she can look him in the eyes. With conviction he says, "Jess, I would rather be stuck here in Hell with you than anywhere else.”

Her tears spill from her eyes and she jumps up off the bed to throw her arms around his neck and hug him tightly to her. His arms wrap around her back and he breathes her in. He eventually pulls away from her embrace but his hand trails down her arm so he can take her hand in his. He brushes her knuckles with his thumb. "We can’t stay here. The whole city is overrun with infected and there is no electricity or running water." 

He leads her through the doorway of the bedroom, still holding her hand. They pause in the hallway. They look around the loft for the last time. They know they are both remembering their lives here.

They turn to look into each other’s faces. He looks into her eyes and he still feels that same magnetic pull towards her that he felt the moment she walked through the door and into his life, a connection that has not diminished with time or distance and only increased in intensity as she has become more familiar to him. It currently feels like a burning desire for her deep in his soul, down to the very marrow of his being, that singular hunger for her. He sees that need reflected back at him through her eyes, begging him to touch her like he used to.

And there in the hallway where they shared their first kiss all those long years ago, he cups her precious face with his hands and kisses her like he’s drowning, pouring his entire being into her, conveying all the love he has been saving for her all those years living alone on Mars. She responds with equal fervor pressing up into him, still needing him and wanting him intensely after all these years. He finally pulls back and rests his forehead against hers with his eyes closed.

She breathes out, “I love you, Nick. I knew you would find me. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew.”

Her words fit against all the jagged, broken edges of himself and make him whole. He opens his eyes to gaze into hers, overflowing with love for him. He breathes out, “I never stopped loving you Jess and I’m never letting you go again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are the two lines I wrote first that inspired this whole story: _"If you thought I was dead, why did you come back?” “Because I could still feel you, Jess. I could still feel that you were alive out there somewhere and even if you weren’t, I could never forgive myself if I didn’t look for you.”_
> 
> I pretty much had to write this fic after those two lines of dialogue came to me and I wrote this chapter first before everything else. This is my fix-it for Nick not fighting for Jess in "Mars Landing." For the woman who he fell in love with the moment she walked through the door, he would go to the ends of the universe to find her, and she would be there waiting for him every time because she believes in him no matter what.
> 
> Bonus: I made Ryan a good guy on purpose, even though I think he is a human pile of saltine dust on the show. He did love Jess in his own way and he died a heroic death trying to save Jess and their students. Jess tried to love Ryan but her heart always belonged to one Nick Miller.
> 
> Time to step it up Canon!Nick. Jess and the rest of your life are waiting for you.


	12. The Last People on Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick and Jess take a roadtrip through the apocalyptic wasteland.

They end up in Mexico.

Nick finds the beach they lived on when they first said _‘all in’_ to their relationship after driving away from Cece’s first wedding. It is blissfully deserted, a sandy white oasis bathed in golden sunlight and surrounded by the turquoise ocean under a crystal blue sky. It feels like they are the last two people left on Earth being gifted with this idyllic paradise.

They go into the beachside resort. Nick goes room by room checking for hidden dangers, but they are truly alone. Fortuitously, the hotel also still has working electricity and running water. For the first time in ages, they are both able to relax, to let go of some of the perpetual tension constantly running through their bodies. 

Nick carries Jess to one of the hotel beds and it feels like their first time all over again. He undresses her reverently. For the first time in years, he is able to touch her again. He runs his hands up the sides of her body and along her ribs, feeling her warm skin against his palms. He presses his hand against her heart. _She’s real,_ Nick marvels to himself. His hands tremble against her. She covers them with her own. _It’s okay,_ she whispers to him watching the complicated mix of emotions pass over his face. He cups her face and leans down to kiss her. He whispers _I love you_ s against her mouth, against her skin. _Show me,_ she whispers back as his eyes warm her all over. They make love on the soft linen sheets before curling up against each other. He falls asleep listening to her heartbeat.

\---

They pretend they are on vacation. They wear soft, fluffy robes and play True American in the hotel lobby with tiny bottles of schnapps they get from raiding the mini-bars. Nick laughs as Jess tries to break her record for doing cartwheels down the empty corridors of the hotel. He chases her down the empty halls, hugging her tightly to him when he catches her. Nick marvels that he is able to touch her again and he does whenever he gets the chance, to make sure she's real.

\---

They go exploring in the sleepy seaside town by the resort. The zombie hordes seem to have vanished from this area, an outcome of nature or good government intervention. One time they stumble upon some starving feral children. They appear frightened of Nick, running away from him and into the abandoned shops of the town as he and Jess approach them; he must remind them of the government agents who quarantined their relatives in his flight suit and biohazard mask. He leaves them some packages of space food in the village center. He is happy to see it is gone when they walk through the town the next day.

\---

He watches her swim in the ocean from the shore. He is able to feel the sun on his face for the first time in forever. He is unable to join her since there is still the danger of contracting the airborne virus from being outdoors so he has to keep his gear and biohazard mask on, but he enjoys watching her anyway. Nick thinks she moves like an ethereal, otherworldly mermaid through the water, the last mermaid on Earth.

When she emerges from the water, he hands her a beach towel so she can dry herself off. She lies down on her stomach and puts her head on her crossed arms to sunbathe next to him, lightly dozing in the warm rays of the sun as he looks out over the ocean. She smiles when she feels him reach out to hold her hand.

\---

They stay in the Mexican resort until hurricane season forces them back inland.

\---

They hike to the Grand Canyon. They find tents and sleeping bags in the visitors center and go camping under the stars. They stay up late into the night just talking to each other. He tells her about being an astronaut and living on Mars; she tells him about living in England and founding her school in Portland. They learn to know each other again. 

In the morning they stand side by side holding hands as they watch the sun rise over the deep gorge. The sun makes its slow ascent over the rim of the horizon, gradually illuminating all the nooks and crannies of the dark cliffs until the entire canyon is flush with color and the sky is ablaze with coppery golden light. Venetian red and burnt sienna and charcoal gray bring the canyon into existence. It feels like the first sunrise on Earth. He turns to look at her bathed in the early morning light. She smiles at him and gives his hand a gentle squeeze. 

\---

They travel on foot to Colorado. They bundle up in winter coats and boots and take on the mountainous terrain. The zombies are sluggish here due to the cold weather, their decaying muscles stiff with frostbite and hypothermia as they shuffle along searching for prey to feed their insatiable hunger. They are easy to avoid, but most of the cabins and residences have already been ransacked by the roving bands of human refugees running away from the cities. There is no fuel to heat the houses and they are perpetually looking for ways to stay warm against the arctic chill. The perpetual cold works its way into their bones. Nick is glad when they make it across the state to warmer locations with better resources.

\---

They have a couple of close calls going through Kansas and Missouri. 

There are fewer zombies in these rural areas but the scarce resources in the region are guarded possessively by groups of human refugees. They try and stock up on food and supplies through grocery stores and farms when they can. A couple of times Nick has to take a couple of warning shots to get a group of human outlaws to back off when they start to surround him and Jess. They finally manage to find a functioning abandoned car on one roadway and are able to drive quickly to pass through these states.

\---

They arrive in his hometown of Chicago. They visit his childhood home. The house lies dark and empty. He keeps expecting his ma to be just around the corner in the kitchen and his brothers to be arguing out in the living room and his cousins to be playing hide and seek upstairs. It’s too quiet; the house is missing its soul. They sit on his childhood bed and Nick leans his head against Jess’s shoulder. Their hands are entwined in her lap. They sit together in silence for hours and she doesn’t force him to talk about it. She gets him to lie down on the bed and she spoons him against her; she is the ‘big spoon’ while he is the ‘little spoon.’ She strokes his hair and hums a lullaby to him until he drifts off to sleep. 

\--- 

They avoid downtown Chicago where the tightly packed buildings allow the zombie hoards to congregate. They are able to find a functioning car with a full tank of gas in one of the suburbs near Nick’s childhood home. They take turns driving towards the East Coast. The Indiana and Ohio landscapes fly past the window. Out of the corner of his eye, Nick watches Jess sleep curled up on the passenger seat beside him. 

\--

Nick always makes sure they find a safe place to sleep before nightfall. They take turns being the lookout at night. When it’s his turn, Nick watches Jess sleep, breathing in and out, watching over her and keeping her safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's to Charlie who commented back on Chapter 3 asking for "sexy Ness." I'm not generally a smut writer because I think it's difficult to do well, but it felt honest to their characters and I wanted to give them a small respite from the apocalypse so I put in that extra scene in the Mexican resort. The scene was more suggestive and sweet than outright smutty but I hope you liked it anyway!
> 
> Hat tip to the FOX show "Last Man on Earth." I was thinking of the episode where it's just Tandy and Carol getting to know each other again as they drive across America in the S2 opener when I wrote this. 
> 
> Some of the scenes are extra material of Ness being couple-y and sweet that I didn't use for my other vacation fic ["Paradise Nick and Paradise Jess Take on New Orleans" ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6844933/chapters/15625048) so if the ambiance of these scenes feels vaguely familiar and you read that fic, that's the reason you're getting a sense of déjà vu.


	13. Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick Miller believes in hope because Jess is alive.

They drive from city to city, picking up supplies where they can. They try to forage quickly during the day and find places to hide at night.

Nick looks at the empty space in his gear bag where his long-gone supply of nonperishable space food used to be and worries. 

He knows this can’t go on forever.

\---

Jess starts having nightmares around Ohio due to a combination of hunger, stress, and exhaustion. She thrashes and sobs against him as he tries to hold her body still and comfort her. She keeps screaming about Ryan and about her students buried under concrete. Her haunted eyes search the dark shadows of their shelter, unseeing and still half-asleep.

He knows this can’t go on forever.

\---

_“No more flights out of Earth.”_

The phrase continually runs through Nick's head. He turns it over and over in his mind as they drive through cities with abandoned storefronts and walk on foot scavenging for supplies. But for there to be no more flights out of Earth, there must have _been_ flights out once. He looks over at Jess walking alongside him. She has dark circles under her eyes. Her face is pale and gaunt from hunger and exhaustion. Another rough night of night terrors awaits her.

He vows to save her.

\---

They manage to find a working public gas station in Pennsylvania. It gives them enough fuel to get all the way to Washington DC before their Chicago car dies from driving on fumes. 

\--

In DC, he takes her sightseeing around the national monuments to cheer her up. They have to walk stealthily around the city to avoid the zombies in the tight, enclosed spaces of the urban landscape.

They visit the White House and he pretends to be the President to make Jess laugh. It’s a sound he doesn’t get to hear too often anymore.

When she is distracted by sightseeing, he sneaks into government buildings and riffles through their files. He searches for documents about shuttle launch sites. He finds information about launch sites spread throughout the southern states. He doesn’t tell Jess; he doesn’t want to worry her over their dwindling supplies or get her hopes up with empty promises. He knows he’ll do whatever it takes to protect her. 

\---

As winter approaches, they drive away from the nation’s capital and toward warmer climates, through the Carolinas and onto Georgia and Alabama. 

\---

Nick starts collecting radio parts whenever he can. By flashlight and candlelight at night while Jess sleeps, his clumsy fingers try to play the game of high-stakes Legos as he puts pieces together in busted-up radios. Every time he makes or finds a working radio, he prays before turning it on. He tries to send an SOS signal out to the universe, but he gets used to the crackle of static and dead air. It haunts his dreams, but he never stops trying. He works on keeping his hope alive. Not for him, but for her. He prays to every deity he knows that she gets to make it out alive, that she gets to be happy, that she doesn’t have to live and die in this barren wasteland, her tiny hand in his, having to watch her back every single day for the rest of her life, living with violence and death on her doorstep.

\---

He checks out every shuttle launch site from the list he found while riffling through government documents. None of them has a functioning communication system, let alone any existing spacecraft that they might pilot to get out of this living hell. It makes him want to scream in frustration; he knows he’s grasping at straws and that they are living on borrowed time. He works on keeping his hope alive.

\---

They arrive in Texas. Stepping into the abandoned NASA facility feels surreal. He stands at the control board, closes his eyes, and prays before he turns it on. The radio crackles to life and a voice he hasn’t heard in almost a year comes through. 

"Hello?…This is Mars Landing to Houston (over)." Static crackles. "Is anyone alive out there? (over)."

Nick takes a deep breath before he reaches for the handheld mic. "Winston...this is Nick…(over)" 

A long pause. Static crackles. "Nick?"

"I found Jess, Winston..." 

Nick can hear a flutter of activity and shouts on the other end of the transmission. 

"Hold on, man," Nick hears Winston say in a tearful, choked up voice. "We're coming to bring you home." 


	14. Epilogue: Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lives they lead...

He marries her on a Tuesday. He wears a tan suit and a red tie that matches her dress. She has pale pink flowers in her hair. When he sees her walking down the aisle towards him, he falls in love with her all over again.

\---

They live in a modest house by the man-made lake. It smells like cinnamon and cider. There are touches of Jess everywhere he looks: her stack of books on their coffee table, her hand-knit afghan on the back of their couch, her organized chaos of yarn, glitter, and construction paper hidden in every nook and cranny. _Her humming, her laughter, her ocean-blue eyes seeking him out from afar._

Nick keeps a small garden in the back. Being able to make things grow reminds him of what is beautiful and decent and good within himself. He likes to bring Jess fresh-cut flowers every morning to remind her of hope and the infinite possibilities of the universe, to remind her how love can survive hell on earth and make something grow from nothing at all. 

\---

Jess teaches children about astronomy and space survival skills at Mars Elementary. Nick is still a truck driver but now he just makes local deliveries on Mars so he can go home to her every night. 

He never misses a chance to tell her he loves her.

\---

One evening Nick comes home to find Jess standing outside on their deck, looking over the lake at the artificial sun sinking down over the horizon. Sometimes, when she doesn't know he is watching her, Nick can see that there is a stony sadness to her eyes. He knows she is remembering all the people they have lost and all the people she could not save, their time away from each other. But when Nick approaches her and hugs her from behind wrapping his arms around her, her entire face lights up and she looks like the old Jess he remembers.

He thinks about the fight they had about the future, about never being enough, not being able to grow up. But when he looks at her, he knows now that love is what makes you enough. How choosing to love something back makes you whole. How when you love something, you rise to meet it, as imperfect as you are. It makes you become the person you were meant to be. Love makes you vulnerable, but it doesn’t make you weak. It allows you to feel everything in the universe all at the same time: heartbreak and pain and fear and sorrow but also beauty and ecstasy and happiness and joy and how it’s all worth it. It makes you greater than the sum of your parts. It makes you believe in the very idea of existence, opening you up to the great possibilities of the universe. And when you look at this other person who has allowed you to love them and you allow yourself to be loved in return, you just know with absolute certainty that this is what you want for the rest of your life and into eternity and you would do anything to protect it. 

He feels their baby kick under the palms of his hands. _"Love you to the stars and back,"_ he whispers into her hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to end this on the last chapter with the rescue, but I thought I really needed to give readers a glimpse of their life on Mars to truly make it a happy ending. I originally didn't have the baby detail in there, but I thought about the episode "Bob & Carol & Nick & Schmidt" and everything Nick has been through and I thought he deserved to be a father and start his own family. *all the feels* Thanks for sticking with me until the end! I hope you enjoyed this crazy rollercoaster of a fic!
> 
> I wanted to end this story on an optimistic note so I cut a chapter out between "Rescue" and "Home" since it was kind of a downer and didn't fit the hopeful tone I wanted to have at the end of the fic by doing a jump cut after "Rescue." The cut scene is about what happens when they first arrive back on Mars. I'll post that as a oneshot for anyone that wants to stay a little longer in this AU (Working Title: "Quarantine"). I'll also start writing my companion piece to this fic shortly, which is the story from Jess's point of view (Working Title: "Where The Sky Meets the Sea" + oneshot "Quarantined").
> 
> Loved it? Hated it? Want to yell at me about what worked and what didn't? Leave a comment to help me improve my writing!
> 
> Thanks for reading! Hit me up on Tumblr if you want to geek out about New Girl: ([dreamsofsleepingin.tumblr.com](http://dreamsofsleepingin.tumblr.com)). I post a lot of author's notes and behind-the-scenes commentary about my writing process, my thoughts about New Girl canon, and updates on new stories and fic ideas I'm working on.


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